Tryst with a Sub-Editor

Giji Marykulam became a familiar by-line through the articles appearing in "Time out" and "Unseen Kerala". It was rather difficult to guess the gender of the person from the name, which subsequently I found out, was not confined to me. Unexpectedly one day the articles disappeared from the paper. After sometime a public notice appeared in the same paper asking Mr. Giji Marykulam of Adackamundackal house, a reporter with the paper to show cause for unauthorised absence from duty, thus the gender and house name was revealed.

Marykulam is a sleepy village in Idukki district of Kerala, on the road from Peermade to Kattappana through which I pass a dozen times a year. Ever since the by line was noticed and whenever I passed the place I always wondered whether Giji took the name from the same place and lived there. Two days after the show cause notice appeared I was driving past Marykulam and on an intuition I stopped at a wayside shop and enquired whether a person named Giji Marykulam lived there, the mention that he worked with Indian Express immediately elicited favourable reply and a kind soul offered to show the house which happened to be a short distance away.

The nondescript house was a forewarning of the person himself. The famous Sub-Editor cum reporter of the mighty Indian Express hailing from a place where there is not a single subscriber for any English newspaper let alone the Indian express. Bewilderment turned to astonishment as he spoke of his schooling in the local school where he was not the brightest and his pre-degree course as a private candidate from where he went to a college that does not figure in the list rated by India today. The secret of his English language was his voracious appetite for reading of all things philosophy.

He was a determined journalist who after stints with different journals at far off places like Gawhati finally landed at the New Indian Express, Kochi. His interests where in wildlife, environment, and historic architecture and has published numerous articles in NIE and won awards. At present he is the staff correspondent of ‘The Hindu’ at Kattappana.

Epilogue: - After reading my Time Out ‘Looks can be deceptive’ in the NIE, he rang me up to say that when he saw me at his house when I went to meet him, he was about to bolt thinking I was a police officer sent by Indian Express to pick him up for unauthorised absence from duty.